Our airport misery

MY HEART goes out to everyone who will be affected by the Heathrow third runway. We live with an expanding airport on our doorstep.

Although nothing like the scale of Heathrow, London Southend (24-hour) Airport has brought us nothing but misery.

The two councils, Southend and Rochford, who approved Stobart’s plans to extend the runway ten years ago bent over backwards to give them everything they asked for, doing the residents a huge disservice.

EasyJet was lured from Stansted by free standing charges and now Ryanair has been enticed to set up a hub on a similar agreement.

As with the Heathrow expansion, the impact of more air pollution and an increase in traffic on often gridlocked local roads is abhorrent.

Don’t believe the claims that modern aircraft are quieter or that night flights will not be allowed. We had that assurance initially, but we often experience disrupted sleep from aircraft because the contract agreed by the councils is full of loopholes. When

we complain, the airport’s reply always states: ‘It was found that all of the aircraft concerned had operated legitimately and within the airport’s operating controls.’

We cannot win, but in the case of Heathrow, why didn’t they choose the option to build an alternative ‘purposebuilt’ airport in the middle of the country?

As if adding insult to injury, plans to build a million new homes along the Thames Estuary have just been announced.

Mrs D. DAVIES, leigh-on-Sea, Essex.